After reading this article you will learn about the adaptive and defensive mechanisms of conflict resolution.
Adaptive Mechanisms of Resolving Conflicts:
While psychologists have been able to clearly identify and specifically describe the defensive mechanisms of conflict resolution, it has not been possible to identify specific adaptive mechanisms. Adaptive mechanisms are described in the form of general principles whereas defensive mechanisms have been more clearly and explicitly defined and described.
It may be said that adaptive mechanisms also involve the use of defensive mechanisms to some extent. It is only when defensive mechanisms are used extensively and excessively that behaviour becomes non-adaptive and maladaptive.
Here we may consider some of the adaptive mechanisms of conflict resolution:
(a) Realistic Goal Setting:
An adaptive principle which is crucial to conflict resolution is a constant appraisal and resetting of the goals one sets for oneself. For example, a boy who aspires to join an engineering college even though his competence in mathematics is low may have second thoughts and decide on some other career.
(b) Analysis of the Conflict Situation:
Whenever an individual faces a conflict the adaptive mode will be to analyse the various elements in the conflicting situation and arrive at a decision. An attitude of analytic examination of one’s own inner tendencies and the external conditions is helpful.
(c) Setting Proper Goal Priorities:
One way of avoiding conflicts is to arrange one’s goals realistically and in order of priority. If this is done, the occurrence of conflict can be minimized to a large extent.
(d) Developing Proper Values and Attitudes:
Conflicts very often occur because one does not have proper and stable guiding principles or values. A person with stable values and principles in life avoids frequent conflicts and even if he does experience them is able to overcome them.
(e) Developing an Attitude of Readiness to Learn from Experience and from Others:
Many of us face severe conflicts and are not able to resolve them because we close our minds and are not able to learn from experience or from others. Every individual would do well to develop an attitude of openness to experience and learn from the same.
An appreciation of the experiences of others will go a long way in helping us resolve our conflicts. Often, conflicts become severe because we are not willing to discuss our problems and conflicts with others. Discussions with others help us to get a more realistic and objective view of our own problems and thereby enable to resolve our conflicts. It is this principle which underlies much of modern psycho-therapy.
(f) Planning One’s Life and Setting up Long-Term Goals:
It is often found that people who experience severe conflicts and are not able to resolve them have failed to develop any long-term plans and goals in their lives. They are found to be people who have failed to develop any idea of long-term goals and have been living on the basis of an immediate pain-pleasure economy.
(g) Develop Wider Interests in Life:
People who experience conflicts and fail to resolve them are generally those who have developed very narrow interests and do not find anything else to command their attention and interest. For example, let us imagine a young girl who wants to become a doctor and wants to dedicate herself to humanity through this profession.
At the same time she is terribly averse to the dissection of human bodies and the sight of blood. This situation is likely to generate a severe conflict within her. If the girl in question had developed interests in other activities such as teaching or social work, then, probably, it would have helped her to resolve her conflict by taking up another profession where she could have served humanity as well as she could have done if she were a doctor or even better.
Because of the narrowness of interests individuals get very intensely involved with the problem and develop strong emotional reactions. This prevents them from getting an objective and clear view of the elements in the conflicting situation.
A person who has wider interests is able to move away from the conflicting situation and is, thus, able to get a more detached view of it. This also provides an avenue for him to find satisfaction psychologically. An interest in nature or the different art forms is very helpful in this regard.
The above principles are helpful not only in minimising or resolving conflicts but are also very helpful in enabling a person to develop as an effective individual, deriving maximum joy from life and also helping others to derive joy. In fact, these are the basic principles of mental hygiene.
Acceptance:
An interesting attitude which helps us in adjusting is often referred to as the attitude of acceptance. The term refers to a reaction wherein the individual refrains from undue emotional involvement in certain events. This attitude has been very much emphasised by eastern philosophies which have always stressed the transitoriness of pain, pleasure, success or failure.
However, one must hasten to point out that this does not mean readiness to surrender to give up such efforts which would help the individual to become more effective. In essence, this means a commitment and adherence to the search for more important and durable goals in preference to short-term and immediate rewards.
Defensive Mechanisms of Conflict Resolution:
Defensive mechanisms of conflict resolution, in contrast to the attitude of acceptance, do not help the individual to resolve his conflicts in a constructive manner and achieve his goals. They impede constructive activity and in many instances, become disruptive.
Excessive use of defensive mechanisms,leads to abnormal behaviour in the individual and in some cases he becomes a helpless victim of his own excessive defensive behaviour. The term defensive mechanisms is employed because these mechanisms are adopted by the individuals as a defence against the tension, stress and anxiety resulting from their internal conflicts.
Such people become more concerned with avoiding anxiety and tension rather than the resolution of the basic conflicts. To a large extent, the tendency for excessive use of defensive mechanisms is a consequence of childhood experiences. Such individuals lose sight of the main goals and needs and are unduly preoccupied with the problems of avoiding, escaping and explaining away their problems.
Our knowledge about the defensive mechanisms of conflict resolution have been primarily derived from the work of Sigmund Freud who for the first time brought out the crucial role played by conflicts in the adjustive behaviour of people. Freud was the first one to identify and describe most of the defensive mechanisms of adjustment.
He also showed that these mechanisms operate unconsciously without the knowledge of the person. Later psychologists, though they have disagreed with many of Freud’s formulations, have nevertheless found his concept of defense mechanisms very useful. Over the years this concept and Freud’s formulations in this regard have found general acceptance and today they are accepted parts of psychological insight and knowledge.
In fact, the occurrence of these defence mechanisms has been demonstrated even in laboratory situations. According to Freud, the primary objective of defensive mechanisms is to avoid the anxiety which is generated in conflict situations. These mechanisms provide ways of avoiding anxiety.
We shall now consider briefly some of the major defensive mechanisms of conflict resolution:
1. Repression:
The credit goes to Freud for identifying this basic mechanism of defense. According to Freud, this mechanism operates to pull into the unconscious any disturbing impulse or thought that might generate anxiety.
In simple terms, repression is a sort of unconscious and effective means of forgetting. In the event of a conflict, repression may operate in such a way as to pull into the unconscious one or both the elements of the conflict. The elements may be two desires or two goals.
According to Freud, repression is the most effective mechanism of avoiding or eliminating anxiety and constitutes a sort of safety-valve that protects the conscious mind. Freud believed that repression is the basic factor behind all types of mental disorders.
A repressed element is totally lost from the conscious mind as though it never existed. We have come across people who have gone through very severe emotional experiences and have lost all memory of their traumas. When the process of repression fails, other mechanisms come into operation.
2. Projection:
This mechanism is commonly exhibited in several mental disorders such as paranoia. Here the individual who suffers from a conflict escapes from the conflicting situation by attributing the impulses or needs to some other persons.
As an example, we may take the case of a man who feels guilty of being unfaithful to his wife (actual or desired). This produces a severe conflict. He tries to escape from this conflict by accusing his wife of being unfaithful to him. The desires and tendencies which generate a conflict are externalized and thereby disowned by the persons.
3. Regression:
This is another defense mechanism which in its extreme form is found in schizophrenia. In regression, an individual when faced with the conflicting situation tries to escape by going back to increasingly childish forms of behaviour.
For example, let us imagine the case of a girl who wishes to get married to a man and at the same time would not like to leave her mother to whom she is very attached. She gets out of the conflict by behaving childishly and avoiding all thoughts of marriage. She may suddenly develop an interest in playing with dolls like a young child. Again this is not done consciously.
4. Rationalisation:
Let us imagine the case of a boy who has secured a job in a place far away from his home and wishes to accept the job and at the same time is not confident that he can go out and live away from his parents. He finally decides against accepting the job by giving a false but apparently logical excuse.
He says that the job offered to him was not very good and that he had heard reports from others that there were too many snakes and scorpions at the place of work. Rationalisation is sometimes referred to as the ‘sour grape’ mechanism.
5. Displacement:
A person who experiences severe anxiety because of a conflict tries to get out of the conflict by blaming something or someone else for his tension and anxiety. A woman who is unhappy with her husband gets angry with the servant-maid and shouts at her. Displacement, therefore, is another defensive mechanism of adjustment. ‘
6. Compensation:
Yet another mechanism of adjustment is compensation. Imagine the case of a young boy who wishes to stand first in his class and at the same time finds himself extremely inadequate. He tries to overcome the anxiety resulting from the conflict by trying to achieve recognition in some other way.
He may become a bully who teases all the other children and thereby achieves recognition. Compensation does not result in maladjustive behaviour in all cases. There have been instances where people have resorted to compensatory behaviour and really made a success. Demosthenes who was originally a very poor speaker and was in the habit of stuttering ultimately became one of the greatest orators in the world.
7. Reaction Formation:
An example of reaction formation would be as follows. Suppose there is a person who has strong tendencies of aggression towards a certain class of people and at the same time feels guilty about it. He resolves the conflict by becoming an apostle of human love and starts a crusade for loving all humanity.
History has shown several, examples of robbers, dacoits and murderers turning into pacifists and saints. An outstanding example is that of Ekalochana, a dangerous robber, who suddenly became a disciple of the Buddha. In reaction formation, the individual resolves the conflict by swinging to the opposite extreme.
It is obvious that when such defensive mechanisms come into operation extensively and excessively, this results in non-adaptive and counter-productive consequences.
Excessive use of any defensive mechanism necessitates further defences and the individual gets caught in a network of defensive reactions. Thus, a person who exhibits reaction formation subsequently exhibits rationalisation and to some extent, even compensation.
This shows that in extreme cases, defensive mechanisms do not operate individually but very often a number of defensive mechanisms are operating at the same time. It should also be understood that all of us employ defensive mechanisms at some time or the other in our lives. However, the consistent and persistent use of defensive mechanisms to escape anxiety can be harmful.
This section has attempted to present the view that behaviour is goal-directed and that the general goal of most behavior is that of adjustment to external or internal demands. A distinction has been made between adjustive, non-adjustive and maladjustive behaviour. It is possible that the reader might have got the impression that all forms of non-adjustive behaviour are undesirable.
However, it should be pointed out that, to a certain extent, non-adjustive reaction is the basis for all progress, growth and development. Civilization, science and technology have grown not because people have been able to adjust themselves completely but because there were instances where people were not able to adjust.
Ultimately, what matters is the way people react and respond to the difficulties of adjustment. Discontent has always been the mother of invention and growth. But discontent combined with dissatisfaction results in maladjustive reactions. On the other hand, discontent combined with a desire to find satisfaction has resulted in growth and progress.